April 26, 2008.
Where Do They Come Up With All Those Goofy Names for Prescription Meds Anyway?

I was spreading pine straw around the bushes in my yard in Atlanta, Georgia,
when I started thinking about... you guessed it! The goofy names that drug companies come up with for their
prescription drugs. Folks in the blue states are often interested in the customs of us
red state folks since they don't get to read about them in the op-ed pages of papers
like the New York Times (unless it is a scornful piece like the one about how the locals were
rooting for abortion clinic bomber Eric Ruby to get away... Run Ruby Run!). Like
when I wrote about the Georgia drought ("Drought and the Power of Prayer", Part 1 and Part 2),
people thanked me for the update on what is going on down here. Well here is another
interesting fascinoma (as we called it in med school). You see most people think that
the US is divided into red states and blue states. But you see within individual states
there is also a division between red counties and blue counties. In Georgia the
blue counties include Fulton and the other affluent areas in metropolitan Atlanta.
The red counties are those below the so called 'fault line' or 'gnat line' in the
southern half of the state. That is where the land is flat and the rivers run
smoothly, or there are more gnats, take your pick. And another interesting thing is that the
red and blue parts are mutually inter-dependent. You see it is the job of the red
parts to wander through the vast pine forests of South Georgia, gathering up
pine needles and bundling them up so that they can ship them to Metro Atlanta
(blue parts) where executives and professionals can take Saturdays off to buy the bundles of
pine straw at the local garden center and dutifully spread it in their gardens.
Nobody really knows why this ritual is necessary, but if the blue part people
didn't buy the pine straw then the red part people might starve to death since
there is no other industry in their area. And the red part people might rise up
in revolution and caste out the blue part people farther north.

Anyway the mandatory spreading of the pine straw that I share with my fellow Atlantans of the
executive and professional classes is such a boring ritual that my mind naturally wandered.
Who comes up with the names of prescription drugs anyway? Take for example the drug
abilify. An antipsychotic drug, the name is apparently meant to represent a new verb
that will stimulate non-functioning mental patients to jump out of their chairs and
start climbing the corporate ladder. Or how about that other anti-psychotic, trilafon?
The makers of this drug were obviously trying to suggest "try laughing". Obviously
the manufacturers of this pill had never personally experienced the scary delusions
or hallucinations that their pill was meant to treat, otherwise they would have
never made such a zany suggestion. Here's another one from the antipsychotic category:
Mellaril. I suggest that the marketing people for that drug come up with a
catchy tune with the words "Mellow out with mellaril". Maybe something from the
Country and Western category?

Lest we think that goofy drug names are restricted to the anti-psychotic class
(whose patrons might be thought to not be able to complain since they were, well... psychotic),
let's look at asthma drugs. Singulair is obviously meant to imply that you will only
need to take one (single!) drug to get some... air. Well singulair may be making
you want to go out to go out and catch some air since it may be making you, well... nuts.
( ("If they Can't Kill Us They Might Drive Us Crazy"). Oh, one more from the asthma category:
Serevent. This one is supposed to make us think of "breathing easy" (i.e. "SEREne VENTilation").
Kind of strange though for a drug that was described as causing patients to "die while
clutching their inhalers".

Hmmm. Not a very serene thought.



My book 'Before You Take That Pill: Why the Drug Industry May be Bad for Your Health:
Risks and Side Effects You Won't Find on the Label of Commonly Prescribed Drugs, Vitamins, and Supplements'
is now available at amazon and at local Borders and Barnes and Noble book stores.

Doug Bremner, MD, is a physician and researcher in Atlanta GA
and author of Before You Take That Pill:
Why the Drug Industry May be
Bad for Your Health: Risks and Side Effects
You Won't Find on the Label of Commonly Prescribed
Drugs, Vitamins and Supplements




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